


with freedom, books, flowers and the moon

by Waistcoat35



Series: they slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered [21]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Book Recommendations, Crushes, Fluff, M/M, Pre-Slash, Reading, Richard 'Gift Giving' Ellis, Thomas 'Enneagram Type 4w3 Barrow', and I hope he appreciates my tags, there is One Person who knows exactly what that means
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:46:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25980808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waistcoat35/pseuds/Waistcoat35
Summary: 'You might like this.'
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Richard Ellis
Series: they slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1772770
Comments: 9
Kudos: 72





	with freedom, books, flowers and the moon

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to March and also to royaldresser on tumblr, with whom I had a lovely conversation about Sherlock Holmes and Thomas and Richard's bonding over it.

They have, for now, moved on from the subject of York. Ellis had seemed to sense that Thomas was growing weary, that there were things he wasn't saying, and so the question has been tucked away for now. Well. Tucked away by Ellis. For all it's running around Thomas' brain, it might as well be lying there in front of them about as conspicuously as one of the mice the kitchen cat brings in. They don't need to continue to carry a conversation right now - they both have sufficient excuses not to, considering they each have something with which they were already occupied - but if Thomas doesn't say something then the previous conversation will be the last thing they said, and it'll just - _stick_.

In an attempt to move on, and growing tired of his crossword (strange, as he only does that when there's something more interesting in the room, and - he tells himself fiercely - there is _not_ ) he turns back to Ellis. Only nonchalantly, he tells himself. No rush. Not like he's bothered. It's just that he doesn't often find people he likes, who don't annoy him somehow. Much less _ne_ _w pe_ ople. Most of the people like that he knows now are just the same ones who've always been here - their brand of irritating is mild and an acquired taste, and after seventeen years he feels he's just about acquired it, thank goodness. But Ellis is amiable and interesting and - and he's _nice,_ goddamnit, or he seems it at least. (Thomas is perhaps the best person to find out if he's not. Poke even a sleepy bear enough times and it'll bite you, after all, and Thomas is good at poking both when he means to and when he doesn't.) 

Thomas wants Ellis to like him, and that's _really bloody annoying_.

But it's true, and so he tries. The attempt is only a quick one - he'll say something and then just leave it, like a mouse skittering from a hole to snatch a morsel and running back twice as quickly as the first time. The other man is reading, now, and Thomas hates being interrupted when he's reading, and doesn't want to be hated himself, so his voice shakes just the slightest bit, and he hates himself for it, he _hates_. 

'Good book you're reading?'

The response he gets is certainly not the one he was expecting, to the extent that he jumps slightly in his seat, startled, when he receives it.

'Oh,' Ellis says, sudden smile a curving and genuine one as he turns his face towards Thomas perhaps too quickly, first turning his head and then _bodily_ turning, as if Thomas has commanded his full attention. He seems _delighted_ that Thomas is talking to him, and considering that that's not something that happens every day (or barely at all) it's enough to make his chest feel all strange and twisty and sickly-excited. 'Yes. It's new, actually.' He seems younger, somehow, in his eagerness, and Thomas is finding himself unsure as to why he's always found it an annoying trait in most people when it's so charming here. Ellis is still talking.

'-live near one of the bigger bookshops in London, so they don't have to order in from anyone else, they just get things when they're out, they're saying it's Doyle's last one, which is a shame, but-'

Oh, Thomas realises, with a twinge of excitement. He knows this one.

'That Sherlock Holmes?' He ventures, nervously hopeful. _Please be Holmes. Please be something I can talk to you about._

'Oh - yeah,' Richard seems a little embarrassed now, 'should've started with saying that first, shouldn't I. It's a collection of the last stories.' 

'I've not caught up on the latest ones,' Thomas says. 'I catch them in the Strand when I can, but I can't always get down to the village at the right time, and by time I do they're out of copies of the issues, sometimes.' 

'You like them, then?' Richard asks, and Thomas finds himself nodding. This is probably the most he's talked about himself in - in who knows how long, and the guilt is there but so is the joy of knowing that Ellis seems to be - enjoying it? 

'Yeah,' Thomas continues. 'Mum read some of them to me as a lad. When I got older and saw they were still going on, I kept up with them.' He has most of the books now, none of them the same edition as any of the others, all collected second hand or lovingly tracked down by Baxter if she's particularly stuck for a Christmas or birthday present. But the one Ellis is holding is fresh off the printing presses - barely two months published. He feels a slight stab of envy, which he tamps down. 

_Not right now, alright._

The book is being held out to him now - a passage he's meant to look at, maybe? But the book isn't open enough for that, and Ellis is holding it loosely, non-possessive. As if expecting it to be whipped away again and to get a slapped wrist (maybe he is, even he's not sure now) Thomas reaches out for it, ever so tentative. Ellis doesn't pull it away, but doesn't push it nearer, letting Thomas take it in his own time. His hand closes around it gently, and he has miscalculated whereabouts Ellis is holding the underside of the book, because their fingers brush, their index ones, silkysmooth, before the contact is lost again and he tingles with it. 

He feels wary as he studies the front - he hopes Ellis isn't looking at his face too closely, or he'll think Thomas is some dingbat who's never seen a book before. He feels like one. 

'You might like this, then,' Ellis says, a little belatedly, before fully letting go of the book. Thomas blinks at him, bewildered. Ellis seems to understand that, at least.

'Go on,' he says. 'You'll appreciate it more than I do. I've got the Strand issues back at my flat, I just like to have the book as well, is all, when they've been compiled. Feels different in your hands, doesn't it. Less temporary.' Thomas nods slowly, in a stupor, and then realises what's being said. 

'Oh no,' he says. 'You can't- you needn't do that. I'll find them some way or another.' The envy is gone, replaced by the half-hearted, directionless flailing that is guilt. 

Ellis tilts his head, looks - almost like he's being rejected. 'Oh - why not?'

'It's - it's yours,' Thomas tries to reason. It's not rocket science.

'Doesn't matter. I'd like you to have it.' 

He suppresses the various complex feelings that gives him - for now. 'But it's _yours_.' 

'Well - now it's yours.' 

Thomas must look at least vaguely pained, and there's the worry of being rude. He doesn't want to be and doesn't mean it as such, but everything rational is overridden by the frantic, flattered thing in him, beating its wings against walls and unsure of what to do.

And finally, Ellis seems to - sort of understand. Even though Thomas can't possibly explain. 'Well, just borrow it then,' he suggests. 

'I'm not that fast a reader.'

The valet shrugs. 'We'll sort it out when the time comes,' he says, in the same tone as the one in which he will later say _'I'll come and find you when we're released,'_ the same as _'we can borrow a car.'_ He says it as if 'when the time comes' is the only way he can bear to say 'when I have to leave.' 

A few days later, when he does say goodbye, the book isn't mentioned. When they have a phone call, a few weeks later - one after countless letters, late at night, Thomas in one of those moods where he's lonely and damp-faced and miserable - he brings it up, resigned, and the answer is one he's been dearly needing. 'Well, you can keep it, can't you? Until we meet again.' (There they are. His four favourite words in the world. Not 'I love you'. Any old sod can say that, and not mean it. They can say that, and love will still end. Those words are not the promise people seem sometimes to think that they are, and for Thomas they never have been. But Richard's words are a promise. He asks if they are, teasingly - they're meant to sound like it, at least - and Richard confirms it. 'My mother'd have my hide if she knew that an Ellis was breaking a promise,' he says. 'We don't break them easily. Not to anyone worth our time.') 

(Thomas is _worth_ someone's _time_.) 

When they do meet again - well, Richard says just the same thing about keeping the book. 

He only stops when the shelf the book is on is one they share together anyway. 

**Author's Note:**

> Basically Thomas is funny and persnickety and doesn't know how to be given things so like he's me!


End file.
